Today in History - May 6
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523 May 6,
Thrasamunde, king of Vandals (496-523), died.
(MC,
5/6/02)(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15268b.htm)
973 May 6, Henry II, German King
(1002) and Holy Roman Emperor (1014-1024), was born.
(HN, 5/6/98)(MC, 5/6/02)
988 May 6, Dirk II, West Frisian
count of Holland, died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1124 May 6, Balak, Emir of Aleppo
(Syria), was murdered.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1527 May 6, German and Spanish
troops under Charles V began sacking Rome, bringing about the end of
the Renaissance. Libraries were destroyed, Pope Clement VII was
captured and thousands were killed. 147 of 189 of the Pope’s Swiss
guard were killed.
(HN, 5/6/02)(PCh, 1992, p.174)(WSJ, 4/14/06, p.W5)
1529 May 6, Babur defeated the
Afghan Chiefs in the Battle of Ghagra, India.
(HN, 5/6/98)
1536 May 6, King Henry VIII
ordered a bible placed in every church.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1576 May 6, The peace treaty of
Chastenoy ended the fifth war of religion.
(HN, 5/6/98)
1576 The Fifth War of Religion in
France ended with the Peace of Monsieur. The Huguenots were granted
freedom of worship in all places except Paris.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1581 May 6, Frans Francken, the
Younger, painter, was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1606 May 6, Lorenzo Lippi,
[Perlone Zipoli], poet, painter, was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1638 May 6, Cornelius Jansen,
theologian (Jansenism), died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1642 May 6, Frans Francken, the
Younger, Flemish painter, died on 61st birthday.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1648 May 6, Battle at Zolty
Wody-Bohdan: Chmielricki's Cossacks beat John II Casimir.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1667 May 6-7, Johann Jakob
Froberger (b.1616), German organist, singer, composer, died.
(MC, 5/6/02)(MC, 5/7/02)
1682 May 6, King Louis XIV moved
his court to Versailles, France.
(HN, 5/6/98)
1733 May 6, 1st international
boxing match: Bob Whittaker beat Tito di Carni.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1740 May 6, John Penn, signer of
the Declaration of Independence, was born.
(HN, 5/6/98)
1753 May 6, French King Louis XV
observed a transit of Mercury at Mendon Castle.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1757 May 6, Battle at Prague:
Frederik II of Prussia beat emperor's army.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1758 May 6, Maximilien F.M.I. de
Robespierre (d.1794), a leader of the French Revolution, was born. He
was known as the "Sea-Green Incorruptible" from his sallow complexion.
He decreed death for all those he considered enemies of the revolution.
(V.D.-H.K.p.231)(HN, 5/6/99)(SSFC, 10/28/01, p.C5)
1794 May 6, In Haiti Toussaint
Louverture (L’Ouverture), Haitian rebel leader, ended his alliance with
the Iberian monarchy and embraced the French Republicans. An order
followed that led to the massacre of Spaniards.
(www.travelinghaiti.com/history_of_haiti/toussaint_louverture.asp)(WSJ,
1/19/07, p.W4)
1794 May 6, Jean-Jacques
Beauvarget-Charpentier (59), composer, died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1795 May 6, Dr. Pierre-Joseph
Dessault visited the incarcerated 10-year-old dauphin, the heir to the
French throne. He found the dying child in abject misery. The boy died
June 8.
(WSJ, 10/18/02, p.W9)
1801 May 6, British Lt. Thomas
Cochrane, commander of the 14-gun sloop HMS Speedy, engaged and
captured the 32-gun Spanish frigate El Gamo. The climactic battle in
Patrick O’Brian’s novel “Master and Commander” is based on the Speedy’s
fight with El Gamo. Cochrane was later elected to Parliament, pointed
out corruption and was arrested on trumped up charges. After that he
served as the first commander of Chile’s navy, then Brazil’s navy and
the Greek navy before returning to England. In 2000 Robert Harvey
authored “Cochrane: The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain.”
(ON, 11/04, p.1)
1806 May 6, Chapin Aaron Harris,
founder of the America Society of Dental Surgeons, was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1814 May 6, Wilhelm Ernst,
violinist, composer, was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1814 May 6, George Joseph Vogler
(64), composer, died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1833 May 6, John Deere made his
1st steel plow.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1835 May 6, The 1st edition of NY
Herald was priced at 1 cent. The Herald specialized in crime with an
emphasis on murder. James Gordon Bennett was the Scottish-born steward
of the Herald. Within a few years of the 1936 Jewett murder case, a
coalition of clergymen, financiers and rival editors waged a “Moral
War” against Bennett and his newspaper
(SFEM, 11/8/98, p.12)(SFEM, 8/6/00, p.45)(MC, 5/6/02)
1836 May 6, Christian Ignatius
Latrobe (78), composer, died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1840 May 6, Frederick William
Stowe, was born He was the son of the famous Harriet Beecher Stowe and
fighter in the Civil War for the Union.
(HN, 5/6/99)
1849 May 6, Wyatt Eaton, artist,
was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1851 May 6, Dr. John Gorrie
patented a "refrigeration machine."
(MC, 5/6/02)
1851 May 6, Linus Yale patented
his Yale lock.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1853 May 6, The 1st major US rail
disaster killed 46 at Norwalk, Connecticut.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1856 May 6, Robert Peary, arctic
explorer, was born. He reached the North Pole in 1909. [see 1909
&1856-1920, Peary]
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AHD, p.964) (HN, 5/6/98)
1856 May 6, Sigmund Freud
(d.1939), father of psychology and the Viennese physician who
discovered the unconscious, was born. He treated his hysterical
patients by encouraging them to associate freely. He insisted that
sexual desires and fears lay just beneath the surface of
everyone’s mind. A biography of Freud was later written by Peter
Gay.
(V.D.-H.K.p.281-282)(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.9)(HN,
5/6/98)
1856 May 6, U.S. Army troops from
Fort Tejon and Fort Miller prepared to ride out to protect Keyesville,
California, from Yokut Indian attack.
(HN, 5/6/00)
1859 May 6, Baron Freidrich von
Humboldt (b.1769), German naturalist and explorer who made the first
isothermic and isobaric maps, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt)
1861 May 6, Jefferson Davis
approved a bill declaring War between US and Confederacy.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1861 May 6, Arkansas and Tennessee
becomes 9th & 10th state to secede from US. [see Jun 8]
(AP, 5/6/97)(HN, 5/6/98)(MC, 5/6/02)
1862 May 6, Henry David Thoreau
(44), American writer, died of tuberculosis. In 1999 his unfinished
manuscript "Wild Fruits," a catalog of his observations on local plants
and fruits, was published.
(WP, 1952, p.42)(SFC, 9/7/99, p.A3)(HN, 5/6/01)
1864 May 6, In the second day of
the Battle of Wilderness between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and
Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet
(d.1903) was wounded by his own men.
(HN, 5/6/99)(MC, 5/6/02)
1864 May 6, General Sherman began
to advance on Atlanta.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1868 May 6, Gaston Leroux, French
novelist (The Phantom of the Opera), was born.
(HN, 5/6/01)
1877 May 6, Chief Crazy Horse
surrendered to U.S. troops in Nebraska. Crazy Horse brought General
Custer to his end.
(HN, 5/6/99)
1882 May 6, Over President
Arthur’s veto, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred
Chinese immigrants from the United States for 10 years. It was amended
and passed by Congress on August 3 and was signed by Pres. Arthur.
(AP, 5/6/97)(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h739.html)
1888 May 6, Russell Stover, candy
manufacturer, was born.
(HN, 5/6/01)
1889 May 6, The Paris Exposition
formally opened, featuring the just-completed Eiffel Tower.
(AP, 5/6/97)
1890 May 6, Mormon Church
renounced polygamy. [see Sep 24]
(MC, 5/6/02)
1895 May 6, Rudolph Valentino,
legendary silent-screen star, was born in Castellaneta, Italy.
(AP, 5/6/97)
1896 May 6, Samuel P. Langley
(1834-1906), American physicist and aviation pioneer, launched the
first reasonably large, steam-powered model aircraft.
(NPub, 2002,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pierpont_Langley)
1898 May 6, Daniel Gerber, baby
food pioneer, was born in Freemont, Mich.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 6, Harry Golden, Jewish
humorist, writer (2 Cents Plain, Only in America), was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 6, Max Ophuls (d.1957),
film director (La Ronde, Lola Montes), was born in the Rhine Valley of
Jewish parents. He made films in Germany, France, Netherlands and the
US.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, DB p.50)(HN, 5/6/01)
1902 May 6, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place."
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 6, British SS Camorta
sank off Rangoon and 739 died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 6, There was a Zulu
assault at Holkrantz, South-Africa.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1907 May 6, San Francisco
streetcar workers of the Carmen’s Union went on strike after owner
Patrick Calhoun refused to accept a $3 per 8-hour day wage. Calhoun
hired James Farley to break the union.
(SFC, 9/13/02, p.D9)
1908 May 6, The Great White Fleet,
sent by Pres. Roosevelt on an around-the-world voyage, arrived in SF.
The fleet left San Francisco on July 7.
(SFC, 5/6/08, p.B3)
1910 May 6, Edward VII (68),
Britain's King (1901-1910), died and George V ascended to the British
throne.
(AP, 5/6/97)(MC, 5/6/02)
1913 May 6, Stewart Granger,
[James Stewart], actor (Prisoner of Zenda, Scaramouche), was born in
London.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1914 May 6, British House of Lords
rejected women suffrage.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1915 May 6, Orson Welles (d.1985),
actor, director, and writer, was born in Kenosha, Wisc. He is famous
for his movie Citizen Kane (1941).
(HN,
5/6/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles)
1915 May 6, Theodore H. White,
historian, writer (Making of President), was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1915 May 6, Babe Ruth made his
pitching debut with the Red Sox hit his 1st HR, but lost to Yanks 4-3
in 15 innings.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1915 May 6, German U-20 sank
Centurion SE of Ireland.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1919 May 6, Paris Peace Conference
disposed of German colonies; German East Africa was assigned to Britain
& France, German SW Africa to South Africa.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1919 May 6, Frank Lyman Baum (62),
author (Wizard of Oz), died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1926 May 6, Marguerite Piazza,
operatic soprano (Young Broadway), was born in New Orleans, LA.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1927 May 6, The was a major flood
along the Mississippi that killed 247 people and displaced thousands.
The levee system broke in 145 places and caused 27,000 square miles of
flooding in Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and
Tennessee. Officials dynamited a levee to spare New Orleans from
flooding. In 1997 the book "Rising Tide" by John M. Barry described the
catastrophe. It was also the subject of the Randy Newman song
"Louisiana 1927."
(WSJ, 2/6/97, p.A12)(SFC, 11/28/03, p.C7)(SSFC,
9/4/05, p.A7)(WSJ, 11/2/05, p.A2)
1931 May 6, Willie Mays, the 'Say
hey ' kid who played baseball for the New York Giants, was born. He
made a great outfield catch in the 1954 World Series.
(HN, 5/6/99)
1935 May 6, The Works Progress
Administration began operating.
(AP, 5/6/97)
1935 May 6, British King George
& Queen Mary celebrated their silver jubilee.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1937 May 6, At
7:25 p.m. the giant German airship (dirigible or zeppelin) Hindenburg
burst into flames and crashed to the ground as it attempted to dock
with a mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey.
Carrying 36 passengers and 61 crew, Hindenburg left Frankfurt on May 4
for its first transatlantic voyage of the 1937 season. A total of 36
died when the fire ignited the 16 hydrogen-filled cells and destroyed
the zeppelin in only 34 seconds. It was 803 feet long and had private
rooms for 50 passengers. It had an 11,000 mile range. A newsreel film
of the Hindenburg Disaster was made. The true cause of the disaster
remains a mystery, although crash investigators considered claims that
Hindenburg was lost due to sabotage or an accidental charge of static
electricity.
(TMC, 1994, p.1937)(Hem., 1/96, p.108)(AP,
5/6/97)(SFC,11/21/97, p.C17)(HNPD, 5/6/00)
1938 May 6, Dutch writer Maurits
Dekker was sentenced to 50 days for "offending a friendly head of
state" (Hitler).
(MC, 5/6/02)
1939 May 6, 1st performance of
Honegger and Claudel's "Jeanne d'Arc at the Stake."
(MC, 5/6/02)
1940 May 6, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath).
(MC, 5/6/02)
1941 May 6, Ghena Dimitrova,
soprano (Nabucco), was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1941 May 6, Bob Hope (b. May 29,
1903) began broadcasting his first USO radio show from March Field at
Riverside, Ca. The United Service Organizations (USO) began operations
this year and provided free coffee, donuts, and entertainment to US
military forces. The organization is supported entirely by private
citizens and corporations.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.D5)(HN, 5/6/98)(SFEC, 9/8/96, Par
p.8)
1941 May 6, Dictator Josef Stalin
assumed the Soviet premiership, replacing Vyacheslav M. Molotov.
(AP, 5/6/97)
1942 May 6, Ariel Dorfman, Chilean
writer (Death and the Maiden), was born.
(HN, 5/6/01)
1942 May 6, On Corregidor US
Gen’l. Jonathan Wainwright surrendered his forces, some 15,000
Americans and Filipinos, to the Japanese. This began a 3-year ordeal
for 4 doctors as POWs under the Japanese. In 2005 John A. Glusman
authored “Conduct Under Fire,” and account of their survival as POWs.
(AP, 5/6/97)(SSFC, 7/10/05,
p.E4)(http://tinyurl.com/736ws)
1943 May 6, British 1st army
opened an assault on Tunis.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1944 May 6, The Red Army besieged
and captured Sevastopol in the Crimea.
(HN, 5/6/99)
1945 May 6, Bob Seger, folk singer
(Silver Bullet Band-Shake Down), was born in Dearborn, Mich.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1945 May 6, Axis Sally made her
final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.
(HN, 5/6/99)
1946 May 6, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Arthur M. Schlesinger ("Age of Jackson").
(MC, 5/6/02)
1948 May 6, 43 communist rebels
were executed in Athens.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1949 May 6, P.M.B. Maurice
Maeterlinck (b.1862), Belgian philosopher, playwright (Grand Fairie)
and essayist, died in Nice, France. He won the 1911 Nobel Prize in
Literature.
(WUD, 1994,
p.861)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Maeterlinck)
1950 May 6, Liz Taylor wed Conrad
Hilton Jr. in her first marriage.
(www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,291072~7~~,00.html)
1950 May 6, Agnes Smedley,
American journalist and writer, died. She was best known for her
chronicling of the Chinese revolution.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States)
1952 May 6, Maria Montessori
(b.1870), Italian physician, educationist, died In Holland. She opened
her 1st school in San Lorenzo, Italy, in 1907.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori)(SFC,
1/6/07, p.B1)
1954 May 6, Medical student Roger
Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford,
England, finishing in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.
(AP, 5/6/97)
1955 May 6, West Germany joined
NATO.
(WSJ, 10/8/01, p.A14)(MC, 5/6/02)
1957 May 6, Eugene O'Neill's play
"Long Day's Journey into Night" won the Pulitzer Prize for drama; John
F. Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage" won the Pulitzer for biography or
autobiography.
(AP, 5/6/07)
1957 May 6, Last broadcast of "I
Love Lucy" on CBS-TV. [see Jun 24]
(MC, 5/6/02)
1959 May 6, Iceland gunboats shot
at British fishing ships.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1960 May 6, President Eisenhower
signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
(HN, 5/6/98)
1960 May 6, Britain's Princess
Margaret married Anthony Armstrong-Jones (Lord Snowdon), a commoner, at
Westminster Abbey. They divorced in 1978.
(AP, 5/6/97)
1960 May 6, Jacques Mornard
(Ram¢n Mercader), Trotsky's murderer, was freed in Mexico.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1961 May 6, George Clooney, actor
(Dr Douglas Ross-ER, Batman), was born in Lexington, KY.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1962 May 6, In the first test of
its kind, the submerged submarine USS Ethan Allen fired a Polaris
missile armed with a nuclear warhead that detonated above the Pacific
Ocean.
(AP, 5/6/97)(HN, 5/6/98)
1962 May 6, Pathet Lao broke cease
fire and conquered Nam Tha Laos.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1963 May 6, A Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Barbara Tuchman (Guns of August).
(MC, 5/6/02)
1964 May 6, Joe Orton's
"Entertaining Mr. Sloan," premiered in London. [see Apr 18]
(MC, 5/6/02)
1967 May 6, 400 students seized
the administration building at Cheyney State College, Pa.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1967 May 6, The body of Keith Lyon
(12) of Brighton, England, was found clad in his school uniform on a
grass bank near a rural bridle path between the nearby villages of
Ovingdean and Woodingdean, about 56 miles south of London. He had left
home to buy a geometry set and never returned. Lyon had been stabbed 11
times in the chest, back and abdomen with a serrated kitchen knife. In
2006 2 suspects were arrested.
(AP, 8/1/06)
1968 May 6, Astronaut Neil
Armstrong was nearly killed in a lunar module trainer accident.
(HNQ, 7/20/99)
1968 May 6, In Paris violent
fighting took place in the morning and then from 2 p.m. in the
afternoon to 1 a.m. the next morning on the Boulevard Saint-Michel and
Saint-Germain. Close to 600 students and police were wounded. Student
strikes spread to the provinces.
(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/history/etol/writers/frank/1968/may1968/chronology.htm)
1970 May 6, Yuichiro Miura
(b.1932) of Japan skied down Mt. Everest.
(http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1090978/index.htm)
1974 May 6, Bundy victim Roberta
Parks disappeared from OSU, Corvallis, Ore.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6664391)
1975 May 6, In hockey the
Philadelphia Flyers won the semifinal series over Boston 4 games to 1.
On May 16 the Montreal Canadiens won the finals in 4 games.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975-76_Philadelphia_Flyers_season)
1975 May 6, Bundy victim Lynette
Culver disappeared from Pocatello, Idaho.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy)
1975 May 6, A tornado swept
through Omaha, Nebraska, along 72nd St. the site of many motels on a
weekday noon,. All sorts of folks had to explain just how they wound up
in a state of dishabille in a roofless motel room.
(Nat. Hist., 3/96,
p.65)(www.crh.noaa.gov/oax/archive/may1975/may675.php)
1975 May 6, Jozsef Mindszenty
(83), [Joseph Prehm], Hungarian cardinal, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Mindszenty)
1976 May 6, An earthquake struck
Italy’s northern region at Friuli-Venezia Giulia, affecting 11 villages
near the Austrian and Yugoslav borders. The earthquake killed more than
1,000 people in a 3,300-square-mile area and left 80,000 homeless.
(http://tinyurl.com/dvzp6)(SFC, 12/17/05, p.F1)
1978 May 6, On this day at 12:34,
the numbers 12345678 represented the time and day: 12:34 5/6/78. The
next such sequence will occur in 2078.
(SFC, 7/14/96, A1 p.2)
1980 May 6, Stanford Linear
Accelerator officials announced a successful collision of matter and
antimatter in their new $78 million accelerator.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.F2)
1981 May 6, Yale architecture
student Maya Ying Lin was named winner of a competition to design the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
(AP, 5/6/97)
1981 May 6, The US expelled Libyan
diplomats.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/cron.html)
1987 May 6, Democratic
presidential candidate Gary Hart held a news conference in Hanover,
N.H., in which he denied ever having an affair with Miami model Donna
Rice, but declined to say whether he'd ever committed adultery.
Washington Post reporter Paul Taylor asked him: "Have you ever
committed adultery?"
(AP, 5/6/97)(SFC, 4/14/99, p.A1)
1987 May 6, PTL's Jim Bakker and
Rich Dortch were dismissed from Assemblies of God.
(http://tinyurl.com/mu4cn)
1987 May 6, William J. Casey, CIA
Director (1981-1987), died at age 74.
(AP, 5/6/97)
1987 May 6, A London building that
housed the congress of South African Trade Unions was bombed under
orders of the apartheid government of South Africa.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A11)
1988 May 6, In his first comment
on the matter, President Reagan said he didn't "look kindly" on reports
that a memoir by former chief of staff Donald Regan painted an
unflattering portrait of first lady Nancy Reagan.
(AP, 5/6/98)
1989 May 6, Sunday Silence scored
an upset victory over Easy Goer in the 115th Kentucky Derby at
Churchill Downs.
(AP, 5/6/99)
1990 May 6, Freed American hostage
Frank Reed said at a news conference in Arlington, Va., that he had
been savagely beaten by his captors in Lebanon after two unsuccessful
escape attempts.
(AP, 5/6/00)
1990 May 6, Former president P.W.
Botha quit South Africa's ruling National Party as a protest against
the apartheid reform program of his successor F.W. de Klerk.
(www.cnn.com/almanac/9805/06/)
1991 May 6, President Bush
returned to work after spending two nights at Bethesda Naval Hospital
because of an irregular heartbeat; he met at the White House with
Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.
(AP, 5/6/01)
1991 May 6, US Steel was removed
as a component of the Dow Jones.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R46)
1991 May 6, Wilfrid Hyde-White
(87), British actor (Peyton Place/140+ films), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0405035/)
1992 May 6, Former Soviet leader
Mikhail S. Gorbachev delivered a speech at Westminster College in
Fulton, Mo., where Winston Churchill had spoken of the Iron Curtain;
Gorbachev said the world was still divided, between north and south and
rich and poor.
(AP, 5/6/97)
1992 May 6, Actress Marlene
Dietrich (b.1901), film star and singer, died at her Paris home at age
90. She was buried in Germany on May 16.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.D-2)(AP, 5/16/97)
1993 May 6, The space shuttle
"Columbia" landed safely in California after a 10-day mission.
(AP, 5/6/98)
1993 May 6, The Bosnian Serb
parliament, for the third time, rejected a U.N. peace plan for
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic,
ordered a blockade of all supplies, except food and medicine, to the
Bosnian Serbs.
(AP, 5/6/98)
1994 May 6, Paula Jones filed a
complaint of sexual harassment in US District Court in Little Rock,
Ark. against Pres. Bill Clinton. According to Jones, on May 8, 1991 at
the Third Annual Governor’s Quality Management Conference in Little
Rock, Ark., Gov. Bill Clinton invited Ms. Jones, a state employee
working at the registration desk, to a private meeting and
exposed his desire for her. Jones reached a settlement with Clinton in
November 1998.
(WSJ, 6/26/96, p.A18)(AP, 5/6/04)
1994 May 6, Britain's Queen
Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterrand formally opened
the Channel Tunnel between their countries.
(AP, 5/6/04)
1994 May 6, Nelson Mandela and his
ANC finally were confirmed winners in South Africa.
(www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/may96/bryant_5-6.html)
1995 May 6, Long-shot Thunder
Gulch, ridden by Gary Stevens, won the 121st Kentucky Derby.
(AP, 5/6/00)(WSJ, 5/5/97, p.A16)
1995 May 6, Friends and relatives
of the Oklahoma City bombing victims made a pilgrimage to the site of
the attack.
(AP, 5/6/00)
1995 May 6, In London, thousands
of World War II veterans celebrated the 50th anniversary of V-E Day.
(AP, 5/6/00)
1996 May 6, All the nearly 16,000
public companies nationwide were required to file their financial
reports electronically with the SEC. All info will go into EDGAR, the
Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system. The home
page of the SEC is: http://www.sec.gov.
(SJBJ, 5/13/96, p. 7)
1996 May 6, The body of former CIA
director William E. Colby was found on a riverbank near his southern
Maryland vacation home, eight days after he'd disappeared.
(AP, 5/6/97)
1996 May 6, Walter Petryshyn, a
Rutgers Univ. mathematics professor, author of “Generalized Topological
Degree and Semilinear Equations,” smashed his wife’s skull with 30
blows from a claw hammer in North Brunswick, New Jersey. He had become
depressed and paranoid over an error in his book.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-10)
1997 May 6, The New York Drama
Critics’ Circle picked “How I Learned to Drive” as the best play for
the ‘96-’97 season. “Violet” was selected as the best musical, and
“Skylight” by David Hare was the best foreign play.
(SFC, 5/8/97, p.A20)
1997 May 6, World chess champion
Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue computer played to a draw in game
three of their six-game match.
(AP, 5/6/98)
1997 May 6, Pres. Clinton made a
state visit to Mexico and spent some time meeting with the leaders of
Mexico’s main opposition parties. Clinton and Mexican President Ernesto
Zedillo pledged closer cooperation on immigration and drug smuggling.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.c3) (AP, 5/6/98)
1997 May 6, Sergeant Delmar
Simpson received a 25 year sentence for raping 6 female trainees at the
Aberdeen, Md., Proving Ground Army base.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/6/98)
1997 May 6, A car bomb in Algiers
killed 4 students and injured 25 people.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C3)
1997 May 6, British PM Tony Blair,
on the first full working day of the new Labor government, gave the
Bank of England the right to set interest rates. Labor had won power
pledging that it would by the party of welfare reform. In October the
Bank of England lost its supervisory powers over banks to the new
Financial Services Authority.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C2)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.63)(Econ,
3/10/07, p.52)(Econ, 6/14/08, p.70)
1997 May 6, It was reported that
Syrian missiles were tipped with VX, a lethal chemical that kills on
contact with the skin. The Syrian chemical weapons program was assisted
by Anatoly Kuntsevich, former head of the Russian Army’s Chemical
Troops. The existing stockpile of Sarin, the nerve gas used by the
terrorists in Tokyo, was hoped to be upgraded to VX.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A22)
1997 May 6, In Zaire Pres. Mobutu
Sese Seko left Zaire for a 3-day visit to Gabon. He was not expected to
return.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C2)
1998 May 6, Rep. Dan Burton,
chairman of the House fund-raising inquiry, apologized to GOP
colleagues for the furor over his release of selected portions of tapes
of Webster Hubbell's prison conversations; Burton's top investigator
departed, ordered fired by House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
(AP, 5/6/99)
1998 May 6, Jurgen Schrempp of
Daimler Benz and Robert Eaton of Chrysler announced in London that the
German auto company will purchase Chrysler in a $38 billion merger. The
takeover was later documented by Bill Vlasic and Bradley A. Stertz in
their book “Taken for a Ride: How Daimler-Benz Drove Off with Chrysler.”
(WSJ, 5/8/98, p.W1)(WSJ, 6/12/00, p.A28)
1998 May 6, Astronomers announced
the detection of a gamma ray burst in a galaxy 12 billion light years
away that was equal to the energy expended by the sun in a trillion
years.
(AP, 5/6/99)
1998 May 6, In Bosnia 5 key
Karadzic holdovers were arrested or suspended for political and
economic illegal acts.
(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A10)
1998 May 6, The Danish government
intervened to end a ten day strike by 500,000 workers. It was planned
to make strikes illegal until March, 2000, and offered 2 extra vacation
days and an additional 3 days of family leave for working parents with
children under 14.
(WSJ, 5/7/98, p.A16)
1998 May 6, There was a border
skirmish between Ethiopia and Eritrea over the 150-square-mile area
called the Badme triangle.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A12)
1998 May 6, In Peru a Boeing 737,
chartered by Occidental Petroleum from the Peruvian air force, crashed
in the Amazon jungle. At least 13 of 87 people survived the crash.
(WSJ, 5/7/98, p.A1)
1998 May 6, In Serbia fighting in
Kosovo continued. A Serb policeman and an ethnic Albanian separatist
were killed. The bodies of 2 Albanians who backed Serb rule were pulled
from a river and a local politician died in a third attack.
(WSJ, 5/7/98, p.A1)
1999 May 6, President Clinton met
with Kosovo refugees in Germany, listening to accounts of murder, rape
and terror and promising them, "You will go home again in safety and in
freedom."
(AP, 5/6/00)
1999 May 6, The Clinton
administration suspended the sale of handguns to Venezuelan companies
because of concerns that the guns were ending up in the hands of
narcotics gangs and guerrilla groups in Colombia.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.D3)
1999 May 6, The US House of Rep.
approved a $13.1 billion emergency spending bill to pay for the air war
in Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.A3)
1999 May 6, A US appeals court
ruled that government restrictions on the export of encryption software
violated free speech.
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A1)
1999 May 6, Bristol-Myers
announced a plan to spend $100 million over the next 5 years in 5
southern African nations to fund AIDS research trials.
(WSJ, 5/6/99, p.A1)
1999 May 6, Scientists reported
that the salmonella bacteria becomes disabled when stripped of a gene
that produces the DNA adenine methylase (Dam). The research was seen as
a potent new source for vaccines.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.A1,17)
1999 May 6, The storm in Oklahoma
that killed 41 people moved on to Tennessee and took killed 4 people.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.A3)
1999 May 6, In Iraq the new
vacation-resort city of Saddamiat al-Tharthar opened 85 miles west of
Baghdad. Nearly every brick was engraved with the initials of Saddam
Hussein.
(SFC, 5/12/99, p.C5)
1999 May 6, Russia joined NATO to
back a framework for ending the conflict in Kosovo that included an
international security presence to enforce peace.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.A1)
1999 May 6, Electricity was
restored in Belgrade as NATO air strikes continued in Yugoslavia. A
main railroad bridge was destroyed near the Romanian border and oil
depots in Nis were hit.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.A15)
1999 May 6, In Scotland elections
for the 129-member Edinburgh parliament were scheduled. Its powers
would include control over taxes, health, transport, education, legal
affairs, sports and the arts. Reversing decades of overwhelming loyalty
to Britain's governing Labor Party, Scottish and Welsh voters elected
strong nationalist oppositions to their first separate assemblies of
modern times. The Scottish National Party won 56 of 129 seats, the
Liberal Democrats won 17 and the Conservatives won 18.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.A28)(SFC, 5/8/99, p.A10)(AP, 5/6/00)
1999 Apr 6, In Wales the 2.2
million voters were to elect a 60-member assembly. It would be
responsible for distributing a $13 million grant from London. Labor
took 28 of 60 seats, the nationalist Plaid Cymru took 17, the
Conservatives got 9 and the Liberal Democrats got 6.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.A28)(SFC, 5/8/99, p.A10)
2000 May 6, The 1st geocaching
cache was found hidden outside Portland, Oregon, by Mike Teague. [see
May 3]
(WSJ, 3/19/02, p.A20)
2000 May 6, Fusaichi Pegasus won
the 126th Kentucky Derby. He was the first favorite to win the Kentucky
Derby since “Spectacular Bid” in 1979.
(SFEC, 5/7/00, p.D1)(AP, 5/6/01)
2000 May 6, Jack Mazzan, who’d
spent 20 years on death row for the murder of a judge’s son, was
released on bail, three months after the Nevada Supreme Court reversed
his conviction. Before he could be tried again, Mazzan pleaded guilty
to killing Richard Minor Jr. and received a life sentence; Mazzan has
since sought parole, unsuccessfully.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2000 May 6, It was reported that
Jin Wenchao, a former soldier and head of a Chinese construction firm
involved in the Three Gorges dam project, had disappeared with over
$120 million.
(SFC, 5/6/00, p.A12)
2000 May 6, In Sierra Leone rebels
clashed with UN peacekeepers and advanced on Freetown. Rebel leader
Foday Sankoh halted the rebel advance.
(SFEC, 5/7/00, p.A1)(SFC, 5/8/00, p.A12)
2000 May 6, In Sudan Pres. Omar
el-Bashir dismissed Hassan Turabi as the secretary-general of the
ruling National Congress Party.
(SFC, 5/8/00, p.A13)
2001 May 6, An anonymous donor
pledged $100 million to Johns Hopkins Univ. to develop a vaccine and
new drugs for malaria.
(WSJ, 5/7/01, p.A1)
2001 May 6, American businessman
Dennis Tito ended the world's first paid space vacation as he returned
to Earth aboard a Russian capsule.
(AP, 5/6/02)
2001 May 6, In Sari, Iran, the
Mottaqi stadium grandstand collapsed and killed several people with
hundreds injured.
(WSJ, 5/7/01, p.A1)
2001 May 6, Macedonian forces
lobbed shells into villages seized by ethnic Albanian rebels.
(SFC, 5/7/01, p.C1)
2001 May 6, In the Philippines
Pres. Arroyo lifted the “state of rebellion” order.
(SFC, 5/7/01, p.C1)
2001 May 6, In Spain Manuel
Gimenez Abad (52), a politician of the ruling Popular Party, was shot
to death in Zaragoza.
(SFC, 5/7/01, p.C3)
2001 May 6, In Syria Pope John
Paul II prayed in the Great Umayyad Mosque, the 1st time a pontiff ever
visited and prayed in a Muslim house of worship. He called for
brotherhood between Christians and Muslims.
(SFC, 5/7/01, p.A1)(AP, 5/6/02)
2002 May 6, It was reported that
the Bush administration planned to annul the 1998 US signature on the
Rome Statute, a treaty for creating an int'l. war-crimes tribunal.
(WSJ, 5/6/02, p.A1,4)
2002 May 6, Federal regulators
released documents that showed Enron Corp. had manipulated the
California power system to increase profits.
(WSJ, 5/7/02, p.A1)
2002 May 6, Two mailbox pipe bombs
were found in Colorado and another one in Nebraska.
(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A3)
2002 May 6, Otis Blackwell (70),
songwriter, died in Nashville. His 1950s songs included “Don't Be
Cruel,” “All Shook Up,” “Return to Sender,” and “Great Balls of Fire.”
(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A31)
2002 May 6, In Afghanistan the CIA
fired a missile from a Predator in an attempt to kill Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, head of Hezb-e-Islami, and his top aides outside Kabul.
(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A22)
2002 May 6, French Pres. Chirac
appointed Jean-Pierre Raffarin (center right) as PM.
(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A12)(Econ, 2/12/05, p.50)
2002 May 6, Jose Luis Nieto (56)
raced his pickup into a crowd of toddlers in Ecatepec, near Mexico
City, and killed 2 children aged 2 and 3. A daily school ceremony had
blocked access to his house.
(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A12)
2002 May 6, Myanmar's opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi was freed after 19 months of house arrest.
(AP, 5/6/03)
2002 May 6, In Nepal the
government reported that army air strikes had killed an additional 200
rebels in the remote districts of Rolpa and Pyuthan.
(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A11)
2002 May 6, In the Netherlands Pim
Fortuyn (54), a right-wing populist with an anti-immigrant platform,
was shot to death in Hilversum. Volkert van der Graaf (32), an
environmental activist, was arrested May 7 for the murder. He was later
sentenced to 18 years in prison.
(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/7/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/8/02,
p.A17)(AP, 5/6/03)
2002 May 6, Daan Goosen, South
Africa scientist, passed a vial of genetically engineered bacteria to a
retired US CIA officer and offered an entire collection of pathogens
developed in SA bio-weapons research for $5 million and immigrations
permits for 19 associates and family members. The deal collapsed.
(SSFC, 4/20/03, p.A16)
2002 May 6, Zimbabwe arrested an
8th journalist under its harsh new press law.
(WSJ, 5/7/02, p.A1)
2003 May 6, President Bush lifted
Clinton-era sanctions (1993-1998) against Angola's UNITA rebels, citing
the end of a quarter-century of civil war.
(AP, 5/7/03)
2003 May 6, White House budget
chief Mitchell Daniels announced his resignation.
(AP, 5/6/04)
2003 May 6, Florida Senator Bob
Graham launched his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination
by accusing President Bush of retreating from the war on terrorism to
"settle old scores" between the Bush family and Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 5/6/04)
2003 May 6, Kmart Corporation
emerged from bankruptcy after more than 15 months of Chapter 11
protection.
(AP, 5/6/04)
2003 May 6, Six Algerian soldiers
were killed when suspected Islamic fighters bombed their vehicle and
sprayed the survivors with gunfire.
(AP, 5/7/03)
2003 May 6, In northeastern India
suspected separatist guerrillas killed 19 Bengali settlers in Tripura
state.
(AP, 5/6/03)
2003 May 6, Ghazi Hammud, Baath
regional chairman in the Kut district, was put in custody. He is No. 32
on Central Command's list of the 55 most-wanted members of Saddam's
regime.
(AP, 5/7/03)
2003 May 6, The Liberian
government announced that Sam Bockerie (39), a guerrilla RUF leader,
was killed in a shootout with Liberian soldiers.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A1)
2003 May 6, Saudi authorities
seized a weapons cache and foiled plans by suspected terrorists. At
least 19 men were sought.
(SFC, 5/8/03, p.A1)
2003 May 6, It was reported that
AIDS in Zambia had cut the average life expectancy to 33 years from 44
a decade ago. One in 5 adults was reported to have HIV.
(WSJ, 5/6/03, p.A1)
2004 May 6, An estimated 51.1
million people tuned in for the final first-run episode of "Friends" on
NBC.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2004 May 6, Pres. Bush told King
Abdullah II of Jordan that he was sorry for the mistreatment of Iraqi
prisoners by US guards.
(SFC, 5/7/0, p.A1)
2004 May 6, The FBI arrested
Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield as part of the investigation into the
Madrid train bombings; however, the bureau later said Mayfield's arrest
had been a mistake, and apologized. In 2006 the US government agreed to
pay Mayfield $2 million to settle a lawsuit.
(AP, 5/6/05)(SFC, 11/30/06, p.A7)
2004 May 6, Lea Fastow, wife of
former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow, pleaded guilty to a
misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to one year in prison.
(SFC, 5/7/04, p.C3)
2004 May 6, An audio recording
attributed to Osama bin Laden offered rewards in gold for the killing
of top U.S. and U.N. officials in Iraq or of the citizens of any nation
fighting there.
(AP, 5/7/04)
2004 May 6, The Bank of England
raised interest rates a quarter point to 4.25%.
(Econ, 5/8/04, p.53)
2004 May 6, The leader of the
breakaway region of Adzharia fled after street protests, and Georgia's
president flew into the restive province, vowing to pursue the
integration of two other separatist regions.
(AP, 5/6/04)
2004 May 6, A suicide attacker
detonated a car bomb outside the so-called Green Zone that houses the
U.S. headquarters in Baghdad, killing five Iraqi civilians and a U.S.
soldier. U.S. soldiers backed by tanks and armored fighting vehicles
seized control of the governor's office from Shiite militiamen in the
city of Najaf. As many as 41 Iraqis were killed in Najaf.
(AP, 5/6/04)(SFC, 5/7/04, p.A17)
2004 May 6, A Libyan court
sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death on
charges they intentionally infected some 393 children with the AIDS
virus as part of an experiment to find a cure. 9 Libyan health workers
were acquitted. Under Libyan law, death sentences generate an automatic
60-day period for appeal.
(AP, 5/6/04)(SSFC, 6/6/04, E3)
2004 May 6, A Mexican court
sentenced eight drug-gang members to 40 years each in prison for their
roles in the 1993 shooting of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo and 6
others at a Guadalajara airport.
(AP, 5/7/04)
2004 May 6, In Nigeria lawmakers
in the mostly Islamic Kano state approved a law calling for Muslims to
be whipped and Christians to be jailed if they are caught drinking
alcohol.
(AP, 5/8/04)
2004 May 6, Hundreds of Rwandan
rebels attacked Kingi village in volatile eastern Congo, sparking a
two-hour battle in which at least five Congolese soldiers and
insurgents were killed.
(AP, 5/7/04)
2005 May 6, President Bush arrived
in Riga, Latvia, as he opened a fast-paced, four-country journey to
mark the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2005 May 6, Joe Grant (96),
pioneering Disney artist/storyman, died. He was co-story director on
"Fantasia," co-writer of "Dumbo" and designer of the witch/queen
character in "Snow White." Grant remained vital and active at Disney
feature animation until his death.
(www.talkdisney.com/forums/printthread.php?t=27485)
2005 May 6, In Bahrain about 5,000
citizens jammed a main road in the capital, waving red and white
Bahraini flags in the 2nd rally for constitutional reforms in a month.
(AP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 6, British Prime Minister
Tony Blair unveiled his Cabinet, changing leadership in defense and
health but keeping mostly familiar faces after a third term victory
dampened by a reduced majority in Parliament.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2005 May 6, Holocaust Memorial Day
(Yom Hashoah). In 1951 Israel’s Parliament set the day of commemoration
for the 27th of Nissan, a few days after the end of Passover.
(WSJ, 5/6/05, p.W11)
2005 May 6, An Indian federal
probe into disappearing tigers in a state-protected reserve has found
the entire population of big cats has been wiped out by poachers. "The
special investigation team in its preliminary assessment report has
indicated that there was no evidence to prove the presence of tigers in
Sariska (national park)."
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, Arab television
station al-Jazeera said militants holding an Australian engineer
hostage have issued a 72-hour ultimatum for Australia to start pulling
troops out of Iraq.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, Insurgent car bombs
struck a market in Suwayrah killing 17 civilians, and a police bus in
Tikrit, killing at least 8 policemen.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, At least a dozen
bodies were found buried at a garbage dump on the outskirts of Baghdad,
some of them blindfolded and shot in the head.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, In Lebanon an
explosion ravaged a shopping area and set off a fire near a Christian
religious radio station in the port city of Jounieh north of Beirut.
(AP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 6, In southwestern Nepal
unidentified gunmen fatally shot Narayan Pokhrel, the chief of the
World Hindu Council's Nepal chapter, while he was touring villages.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah movement narrowly fended off a strong
challenge by Hamas to win local elections, but the Islamic militant
group captured the 3 biggest races in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
establishing itself as a major political force.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, Romania's foreign
minister said his government would keep its troops in Iraq supporting
postwar operations despite the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, The UN Sec. Gen.
appointed Alvaro de Soto as the Special Coordinator for the Middle East
Peace Process. De Soto resigned in May, 2007.
(www.un.org/unsco/coordinator.html)
2006 May 6, Vice President Dick
Cheney met with President Stipe Mesic of Croatia, the final stop of a
three-nation tour dominated by the issue of political reform in
countries making the post-Cold War transition toward democracy.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, Barbaro won the
Kentucky Derby.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2006 May 6, Lillian Gertrud
Asplund (99), the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic,
died in Shrewsbury, Mass.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2006 May 6, Chen Li (b.1929), a
Chinese journalist and former editor-in-chief of China Daily, the
communist government's main English-language newspaper, died in Beijing.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 6, Gen. Frantisek Perina
(b.1911), a Czech WWII fighter ace who fought against Nazi Germany in
the French and British air forces died in Prague.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, In Athens, Greece,
some 30,000 people marched in an anti-war and anti-globalization
demonstration that also saw anarchist attacks on banks, shops and
police vehicles. The march was organized by the European Social Forum,
which was holding a four-day meeting on the outskirts of Athens.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, At least seven people,
including three Iraqi army officers and two children, were killed and
seven others kidnapped in a series of rebel attacks across Iraq.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, A chemical weapons
expert for a major Islamic extremist group was killed by security
forces in Baghdad. Ali Wali, a member of Ansar al-Islam, died during a
raid on a suspected militant safe house in the western Baghdad
neighborhood of Mansour.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 6, A British military
helicopter crashed in Basra and the 5 people were killed. Flight
Lieutenant Sarah Mulvihill died in the crash in the southern city of
Basra along with Wing Commander John Coxen, Lieutenant Commander Darren
Chapman, Lieutenant David Dobson and Marine Paul Collins. Iraqis hurled
stones at British troops and set fire to at least one armored vehicle
that rushed to the scene. Four Iraqi adults and a child were reported
killed during in the melee when Shiite gunmen exchanged fire with
British soldiers. 2 insurgents were killed in Tikrit while they were
planting a roadside bomb.
(AP, 5/6/06)(AP, 5/7/06)(AFP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 6, Teachers at five
schools in the West Bank city of Hebron went on strike, demanding their
overdue paychecks in the first sign of unrest by public employees.
Hundreds of government workers, most of them supporters of Abbas'
moderate Fatah faction, also protested in the West Bank city of Nablus.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, Singaporeans voted in
legislative elections. The ruling party won a landslide victory in
parliamentary elections. It has won every general election held in the
island nation since it became independent in 1965.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, A local rights group
said Zimbabwe state security agents have stepped up the use of torture
against government opponents, with 19 cases reported in March compared
with three during the previous two months.
(Reuters, 5/6/06)
2007 May 6, Carey Bell,
Mississippi-born blues harmonica player, died in Chicago.
(SFC, 5/8/07, p.B5)
2007 May 6, In eastern Afghanistan
a roadside bomb killed 5 police and wounded two others, while a clash
in the west left eight police and at least four suspected militants
dead. An Afghan soldier shot and killed two US troops and wounded 2
others outside Pul-e-Charkhi prison. The next day Defense Ministry
spokesman Zahir Azimi said the Afghan soldier was mentally ill. A bus
crashed in northern Afghanistan, sparking a fire that left nine people
dead and 25 injured.
(AP, 5/6/07)(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 6, In Brazil Eneas
Carneiro (68), a three-time presidential candidate who was later
elected to Congress with the largest number of votes ever received by a
Brazilian lawmaker, died of leukemia.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 6, Britain’s Home
Secretary John Reid announced that he would resign from the government
within weeks, just as Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown is
likely to take over from Tony Blair as prime minister.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, Lord Weatherill (86),
the last speaker to wear the traditional shoulder-length wig, died. He
had ushered Britain's House of Commons into the television age.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 6, In Egypt a plane
carrying foreign peacekeepers across the Sinai desert crashed near a
stretch of highway where it had tried to make an emergency landing,
killing eight French soldiers and a Canadian.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, French voters turned
out in force in a presidential election offering divergent choices for
the future, with conservative front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy urging the
French to work more and Socialist Segolene Royal pledging to safeguard
welfare protections. Nicolas Sarkozy (52), a US-friendly conservative
and an immigrant's son, defeated Socialist Segolene Royal by 53% to 47%
with about 85% voter turnout.
(AP, 5/6/07)(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 6, A car bomb ripped
through a wholesale food market in western Baghdad, flattening cars and
shops and killing at least 30 people in the deadliest of a wave of
attacks across Iraq that killed at least 95 people. A car bomb near the
Ministry of Labor in Baghdad killed five people and wounded 10.
Insurgents exploded another car bomb outside a police station in the
Sunni town of Samarra, killing 12 officers and disabling the city’s
water system. A few minutes later, militants in the town attacked a
police checkpoint near the Askariya shrine, killing another police
officer. US and Iraqi forces raided the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr
City, uncovering a weapons cache, a torture room and killing at least
eight insurgents in a gunbattle. In Diyala 6 US soldiers and a Russian
photojournalist were killed when a massive bomb destroyed their
vehicle. Two American soldiers died in separate bombings in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/6/07)(AP, 5/7/07)(SFC, 5/7/07, p.A16)(SFC,
5/11/07, p.A18)
2007 May 6, Two Israeli human
rights groups charged in a report that Israel's Shin Bet security
service uses torture in its interrogation of Palestinian prisoners,
violating a 1999 court ruling outlawing such practices.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, Italian news said a
Vatican court for the first time has issued a drug conviction, giving a
former employee of the Holy See a four-month suspended sentence for
cocaine use.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, Japan pledged $100
million in grants to the Asian Development Bank to combat global
warming and promote greener investment in the region and called for a
stronger international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, More than 18,000
people stripped down and bared it all in Mexico City's vast main square
for US photographer Spencer Tunick's biggest nude shoot yet.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, Chief Justice Iftikhar
Mohammad Chaudhry, Pakistan's sacked top judge, declared the "era of
dictatorship is over" to cheers from tens of thousands as he took his
battle with President Pervez Musharraf to the eastern city of Lahore.
In northwestern Pakistan a passenger bus veered off a mountain road and
fell about 600 feet into a ravine, killing 21 people and injuring seven
others.
(AFP, 5/6/07)(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 6, In Pakistan’s North
Waziristan tribal region Islamic militants began confiscating music
cassettes from public buses and ordering shops to only sell CDs
promoting jihad in the latest push to Talibanize the lawless frontier
region.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 6, Palestinian militants
opened fire near a children's festival at a UN-operated elementary
school in the southern Gaza Strip, killing a bodyguard of a local Fatah
leader and wounding seven other people. Palestinian militants shot and
seriously injured an Israeli motorist who was driving west of the West
Bank city of Ramallah.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, In South Africa Helen
Zille, mayor of Cape Town, was elected as leader of the Democratic
Alliance (DA).
(Econ, 5/12/07, p.51)
2007 May 6, Spain's Supreme Court
barred hundreds of Basque separatist candidates from running in
regional elections later this month because of links to an outlawed
party closely tied to armed group ETA.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, In eastern Sri Lanka a
landmine detonated by Tamil Tigers killed three police commandos, while
seven suspected rebels died elsewhere in the embattled region.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, Frank Hsieh, former
prime minister of Taiwan, won the ballot of the ruling Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP), as candidate for next year’s presidential
elections. Hsieh favored better relations with China.
(Econ, 5/12/07, p.44)
2007 May 6, Turkey’s Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul withdrew his candidacy for presidential elections
after Parliament failed for the second time to vote him into office.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2008 May 6, Sen. Barack Obama
climbed within 200 delegates of clinching the Democratic presidential
nomination. In the Indiana primary Clinton won 51% to 49%. In North
Carolina Obama won 56% to 42%.
(AP, 5/7/08)(SFC, 5/7/08, p.A1)
2008 May 6, In New Mexico Wayne
Bent (66), the leader of an apocalyptic sect, was arrested and charged
with felony sex crimes against children.
(SFC, 5/7/08, p.A4)
2008 May 6, In California the
Vallejo City Council voted to declare bankruptcy after talks with
public employee unions failed to address a $16 million shortfall.
(SFC, 5/7/08, p.B1)
2008 May 6, The California
Community College system announced a $50 million gift from the Bernard
Osher Foundation.
(SFC, 5/7/08, p.B1)
2008 May 6, In Georgia William
Earl Lynd (53) was executed for the murder of his live-in girlfriend.
He was the first inmate executed since the Supreme Court upheld lethal
injections on April 16.
(SFC, 5/7/08, p.A2)
2008 May 6, In Afghanistan a
Canadian soldier was killed and another was wounded in a gun battle
with insurgents near Kandahar city.
(AFP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 6, Canadian researchers
reported that suicide victims who were abused as children have clear
genetic changes in their brains in a finding they said shows neglect
can cause biological effects.
(Reuters, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Chile’s Chaiten
volcano spewed lava and blasted ash more than 12 miles into the sky,
prompting a total evacuation of the provincial capital and other
settlements.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Chinese President Hu
Jintao arrived in Tokyo for a feel-good visit that will use ping pong
and pandas to take the edge off more contentious problems like border
disputes, historical animosity and concerns over China's rule in Tibet.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Djibouti, a key US
ally in the Horn of Africa, urged the UN Security Council to take
immediate action to prevent a conflict with its northern neighbor
Eritrea.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Egyptian border police
fatally shot a Nigerian man who was trying to cross illegally into
Israel. Guards also shot three Sudanese men and one woman who were also
trying to sneak into Israel.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Officials in Indonesia
said at least 13 illegal gold miners were killed in a landslide in
remote Papua province.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, At least four
civilians were killed overnight in the Baghdad Shiite neighborhood of
Sadr City. The US military announced that about 3,500 American soldiers
are scheduled to leave Iraq in the coming weeks. US Hellfire missiles
killed 3 militants planting a roadside bomb in the Shiite neighborhood
of New Baghdad.
(AP, 5/6/08)(SFC, 5/7/08, p.A3)
2008 May 6, In Italy the
data-protection authority ruled that releasing tax returns into
cyberspace was illicit. Tax authorities had recently put all 38.5
million tax returns for 2005 up on the internet. A measure authorizing
the released had been signed on March 5, but not enacted until the
defeat of the Prodi government.
(Econ, 5/10/08, p.61)
2008 May 6, Kenya froze the assets
of businessman Felicien Kabuga, the most wanted suspect in Rwanda's
genocide, saying it would stop him avoiding capture or helping other
fugitives. The US government has offered a $5 million bounty for
Kabuga's capture.
(Reuters, 5/6/08)(AP, 9/23/09)
2008 May 6, Lebanon’s government
declared Hezbollah’s military telecommunications network illegal and
said it was a threat to state security. The cabinet removed Beirut
airport’s security chief over alleged ties to Hezbollah.
(WSJ, 5/7/08, p.A1)(AP, 5/8/08)
2008 May 6, In northern and
central Mali attacks by Tuareg rebels on several army posts left one
person dead.
(AFP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Mauritania’s President
Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi said in a statement he had named economist
Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef (50) as prime minister.
(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 6, Myanmar's junta
decided to postpone voting on a new constitution in areas hardest-hit
by a devastating cyclone as the death toll soared above 22,500.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Niger Delta rebels
said that former US President Jimmy Carter had agreed to act as a
mediator if invited by Nigeria's government, and the group promised to
declare a ceasefire if talks went ahead.
(Reuters, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, In northwest Pakistan
a suicide bomber riding a rickshaw attacked a police checkpoint and
gunmen fired on officers guarding a bank, killing five people and
testing the new government's fledgling peace process.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Russia and the US
signed a long awaited civilian nuclear cooperation pact that will allow
firms from the world's two biggest atomic powers to expand bilateral
nuclear trade.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, In Somalia hundreds of
youths in Mogadishu lobbed stones at shops and cars and set tires
ablaze in a second day of violence over soaring food prices. Amnesty
Int’l. accused Ethiopian troops in Somalia of killing civilians and
committing atrocities, including slitting people's throats, gouging out
eyes and gang-raping women.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Swiss bank UBS, hard
hit by the US subprime crisis, reported a first-quarter loss of $10.97
billion and said it will slash almost 7 percent of its work force.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Two senior Taiwanese
officials resigned over the loss of millions of dollars in a failed
attempt to persuade Papua New Guinea to officially recognize Taiwan.
(AP, 5/6/08)
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